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Thomas  Warton 
A  Biographical  and  Critical  Study 


BY 


CLARISSA  RINAKER 


Thomas  Warton 
A  Biographical  and  Critical  Study 


BY 


CLARISSA  RINAKER 


SUBMITTED   IN    PARTIAL   FULFILLMENT   OF    THE   REQUIREMENTS   FOR 
THE  DEGREE  OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  ENGLISH 

IN 

THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

1915 


(The  Third  Chapter  of  the  complete  Thesis  is  here  reprinted  from  the 
Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  Vol.  xxx, 
No.  1,  pp.  79-109.) 


PREFACE 

Tie  following  study  of  Thomas  Warton's  Observations 
on  the  Faerie  Queene  of  Spenser  and  its  relation  to  the 
historical  method  of  literary  criticism  is  part  of  a  more 
extensive  biographical  and  critical  study  of  Thomas  War- 
ton.  In  preparing  the  life  of  Warton  the  writer  has  made 
use  of  unpublished  manuscripts  in  Trinity  College  Lib- 
rary, Oxford,  in  Winchester  College  Library,  Winchester, 
and  in  the  possession  of  the  descendants  of  the  Warton 
family.  The  biography  further  includes  a  number  of 
unpublished  Warton  letters.  The  purpose  of  the  critical 
study  is  to  show  the  relation  of  all  of  Warton's  work — his 
poetry,  his  criticism,  his  history  of  English  poetry,  his 
various  antiquarian  works — to  the  literary  movements  of 
his  day.  The  writer  has  tried  to  show  that  this  frequently 
underrated  author  was  an  important  contributor  to  the 
literary  reaction  in  the  eighteenth  century.  His  enthusi- 
astic study  of  the  middle  ages,  especially  of  the  history 
and  literature  of  Britain,  is  his  most  characteristic  contri- 
bution and  enabled  him  to  supply  in  every  department  of 
literature  which  he  entered  an  important  quality  previ- 
ously lacking.  To  poetry  he  added  a  new  interest  and 
much  picturesque  imagery  besides  furthering  the  return 
to  nature  and  the  sonnet  revival.  To  literary  history  he 
contributed  a  fuller  study  of  English  poetry  in  its  earlier 
periods  than  had  previously  been  attempted  and  he  showed 
that  the  poetry  of  the  neglected  mediaeval  period  was  at 
least  as  important  as  classical  literature  in  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  English  literature.  In  criticism  his  study 
of  the  past  produced  the  historical  method  and  helped 
greatly  to  emancipate  literary  criticism  in  the  eighteenth 

iii 


IV  PREFACE 


century  from  the  tyranny  of  rules.  '  This  study  of  Warton 
is  to  be  completed  with  a  bibliography  of  the  sources  of 
his  History  of  English  Poetry,  which  is  based  upon  the 
examination  of  early  editions  of  the  books  Warton  used 
and  the  comparison  of  his  references  with  the  originals. 


THOMAS  WARTON  AND  THE   HISTORICAL 
METHOD  IN  LITERARY   CRITICISM 

\Thomas  Warton's  Observations  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen ' 
of  Spenser  x  has  hardly  yet  received  due  recognition  as 
the  first  important  piece  of  modern  historical  criticism  in 
the  field  of  English  literature.  By  the  variety  of  its 
new  tenets  and  the  definitiveness  of  its  revolt  against  pseu- 
do-classical criticism  by  rule,  it  marks  the  beginning  of  a 
new  school. ,  Out  of  the  turmoil  of  the  quarrel  between 
the  '  ancients  '  and  the  '  moderns  '  the  pseudo-classical 
compromise  had  emerged.  The  '  moderns/  by  admitting 
and  apologizing  for  a  degree  of  barbarity  and  uncouth- 
ness  in  even  their  greatest  poets,  had  established  their 
right  to  a  secure  and  reputable  place  in  the  assembly  of 
immortals,  although  on  the  very  questionable  ground  of 
conformity  with  the  ancients  and  by  submitting  to  be 
judged  by  rules  which  had  not  determined  their  develop- 
ment. It  was  thus  by  comparisons  with  the  ancients  that 
Dryden  found  Spenser's  verse  harmonious  but  his  design 
imperfect ;.  2  it  was  by  applying  the  classical  rules  for  epic 
poetry  that  Addison  praised  Paradise  Lost,3  and  that 
Steele  wished  an  '  Encomium  of  Spencer  also.'  4 

Impossible  as  was  the  task  of  reconciling  literature 
partly  romantic  and  modern  with  classical  and  ancient 
standards,  the  critics  of  a  rationalistic  age  did  not  hesitate 
to  attempt  it :  common  sense  was  the  pseudo-classical  hand- 
maiden that  justified  the  rules,  methodized  nature,  stand- 

1  London,   1754.     Second  edition,  corrected  and  enlarged,  2  vols., 
1762.     References  in  this  article  are  to  the  third  edition,  1807. 
'Essay  on  Satire. 

8  Spectator,  January  to  May,  1712. 
*  Spectator,  No.  540. 

79 


8C  CLARISSA    RINAKER 

ardized  critical  taste,  and  restrained  the  '  Enthusiastick 
Spirit '  and  the  je  ne  sais  quoi  of  the  school  of  taste.  The 
task  was  a  hard  one,  and  the  pseudo-classical  position 
dangerous  and  ultimately  untenable.  A  more  extended 
study  of  literary  history — innocuously  begun  by  Ryiner — 5 
and  an  enlightened  freedom  from  prejudice  would  show 
at  the  same  time  the  inadequacy  of  the  rules  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  arriving  at  sounder  critical  standards. 

\These  are  the  two  principal  gifts  that  Thomas  Warton 
had  with  which  he  revolutionized  criticism :  intelligent  in- 
dependence to  throw  off  the  bondage  of  the  rules,  and 
broad  knowledge  to  supply  material  for  juster  criteria. 
When  he  said,  '  It  is  absurd  to  think  of  judging  either 
Ariosto  or  Spenser  by  precepts  which  they  did  not  attend 
to,'  6  he  not  merely  asserted  their  right  to  be  judged  by 
Gothic  or  romantic,  as  opposed  to  pseudo-classical,  stand- 
ards, but  he  sounded  the  death-knell  of  criticism  by  rule, 
and  the  bugle-note  of  the  modern  school.\  When,  in  the 
same  critical  work,  and  even  more  impressively  in  two 
later  ones,7  he  brought  to  bear  upon  the  subject  in  hand 
a  rich  store  of  ideas  and  illustrations  drawn  from  many 
literatures — Latin,  Greek,  Italian,  French,  and  English 
in  its  obscure  as  well  as  its  more  familiar  eras — he  ren- 
dered an  even  more  important  service  on  the  side  of  con- 
structive criticism. 
/  Warton's  Observations  is  connected  not  only  with  the 
history  of  critical  theory  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
,  also  with  what  is  called  the  Spenserian  revival.  It  was 
\  partly  the  culmination  of  one  of  several  related  move- 
ments tending  toward  the  restoration  of  the  older  English 

*  A  Short  View  of  Tragedy,  1693.     See  Chapter  v. 
8  Observations,  I,  p.  21. 

'History   of  English   Poetry,   1774,    1778,    1781.     Milton's   Poems 
upon  Several  Occasions,  1785. 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  81 

classics.  While  Chaucer  was  slowly  winning  a  small  circle 
of  appreciators ;  Shakespeare,  from  ignorantly  apologetic 
admiration  and  garbled  staging,  through  serious  study  and 
intelligent  comprehension,  was  coming  into  his  own;  and 
Milton  was  attaining  a  vogue  that  left  its  mark  on  the 
new  poetry;  the  Spenserian  revival  was  simultaneously 
preparing  to  exert  an  even  greater  influence.  Although 
Spenser  was  never  without  a  select  circle  of  readers,  that 
circle  was  small  and  coldly  critical  during  the  pseudo- 
classical  period  when  his  principal  charm  was  that  which 
his  moral  afforded  readers  who  held  that  the  purpose  of 
poetry  was  to  instruct.  Most  readers  assented  to  Jonson's 
dictum  that  Spenser  '  writ  no  language  '  without  attend- 
ing to  the  caveat  that  followed,  '  Yet  I  would  have  him 
read  for  his  matter.'  The  difficulties  of  his  language,  the 
tiresomeness  of  his  stanza,8  the  unclassical  imperfection  of 
his  design,  and  the  extravagance  of  the  adventures  too  often 
obscured  even  the  beauty  of  his  moral.  Therefore  it  was 
after  a  pretty  general  neglect  of  his  poetry  that  the  eigh- 
teenth century  saw  a  species  of  Spenserian  imitation  arise 
which  showed  to  what  low  ebb  the  study  of  Spenser  had 
sunk.  The  first  of  these  imitators  either  ignorantly  fan- 
cied that  any  arrangement  of  from  six  to  ten  iambic 
pentameter  lines  capped  with  an  Alexandrine,  with  dis- 
tinctly Popeian  cadence  and  a  sprinkling  of  '  I  ween,'  '  I 
weet '  and  '  whilom  '  by  way  of  antiquated  diction,  could 
pass  for  Spenserian  verse,9  or  followed  the  letter  of  the 

8  Hughes,  Remarks  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen '  prefixed  to  Ed.  Spenser's 
Works,  2nd.  ed.,  1750,  I,  p.  lxvii. 

9  Prior:  Ode  to  the  Queen,  written  in  Imitation  of  Spenser's  Style, 
1706,  Preface.  Whitehead:  Vision  of  Solomon,  1730,  and  two  Odes  to 
the  Hon.  Charles  Townsend.  Boyse:  The  Olive:  an  Heroic  Ode,  etc., 
in  the  stanza  of  Spenser  (ababcdcdee) ,  1736-7.  Vision  of  Patience: 
an  Allegorical  Poem,  1741;  Psalm  XLII :  In  Imitation  of  the  Style 
of  Spenser   (ababcc,  no  Alexandrine),  1736-7.     Blacklock:   Hymn  to 


82  CLAEISSA    RINAKEE 

stanza  closely  enough,  but  failed  to  take  their  model  seri- 
ously, and  misapplied  it  to  vulgar  burlesque,  social  and 
political  satire,  and  mere  moralizing.10  Their  ignorance 
of  the  poet  whom  they  professed  to  imitate  is  marked. 
Often  they  knew  him  only  through  Prior's  imitations: 
usually  their  attempts  at  antiquated  diction  betray  them.11 
Occasionally,  as  in  the  case  of  Shenstone,  a  study  of  Spen- 
ser followed  imitation  of  him,  and  led  to  a  new  attitude, 
changes  in  the  imitation,  and  finally,  apparently,  to  an  ad- 
miration that  he  neither  understood  nor  cared  to  admit.12 

Divine  Love,  and  Philantheus  (ababbcc) ,  1746.  T.  Warton,  Sr.: 
Philander  (ababcc),  1748.  Lloyd:  Progress  of  Envy  (ababcdedd) , 
1751.  Smith:  Thales  (ababbccc) ,  1751.  See  W.  L.  Phelps:  Begin- 
nings of  the  English  Romantic  Movement,  Boston,  1902.  Ch.  on 
Spenserian   Revival,  and  Appendix  I,  for  a  more  complete  list. 

10  Pope:  The  Alley,  date  unknown,  an  exercise  in  versification,  and 
ill-natured  burlesque.  Croxall:  Two  Original  Cantos  of  the  Fairy 
Queen,  1713  and  1714.  Akenside:  The  Virtuoso,  1737,  mild  satire. 
G.  West:  Abuse  of  Travelling,  1739,  satire.  Cambridge:  Archimage, 
1742-50,  a  clever  parody.  Shenstone:  The  Schoolmistress,  1742,  sati- 
rical. Pitt:  The  Jordan,  1747,  vulgar  burlesque.  Ridley:  Psyche, 
1747,  moral  allegory.  Mendez:  The  Seasons,  1751,  Squire  of  Dames, 
1748-58.  Thomson:  Castle  of  Indolence,  1748.  See  also  Phelps,  as 
above. 

11  Such  slips  as  '  nor  ceasen  he  from  study '  and  '  he  would  oft 
ypine '  in  Akenside's  Virtuoso,  and  even  Thomson's  note :  '  The  letter 
y  is  frequently  placed  in  the  beginning  of  a  word  by  Spenser  to 
lengthen  it  a  syllable;  and  en  at  the  end  of  a  word  for  the  same 
reason'    (Glossary  to  the  Castle  of  Indolence). 

12  T  cannot  agree  with  Professor  Phelps  that,  '  as  people  persisted 
in  admiring  "  The  School-Mistress  "  for  its  own  sake,  he  finally  con- 
sented to  agree  with  them,  and  in  later  editions  omitted  the  com- 
mentary explaining  that  the  whole  thing  was  done  in  jest'  {The 
Beginning  of  the  English  Romantic  Movement,  p.  66).  On  the  con- 
trary, it  seems  pretty  clear  that  although  Shenstone  had  probably 
not  come  to  any  very  profound  appreciation  for  the  older  poet,  his 
admiration  for  him  became  more  and  more  serious,  but  that  he 
lacked  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  and  conformed  outwardly  with 
a  public  opinion  wholly  ignorant  of  Spenser.  Two  later  letters  of 
Shenstone's    indicate   pretty   clearly  that   it   was   he,   and   not   'the 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  83 

Of  course  by  far  the  best  of  the  Spenserian  imitators 
was  James  Thomson,  whose  work  was  the  first  to  rise 
above  the  merely  imitative  and  to  have  an  independent 
value  as  creative  poetry.  Although  his  'Advertisement ' 
and  a  few  burlesque  touches  throughout  the  poem  are  evi- 
dence of  the  influence  of  the  Schoolmistress  and  of  the 
prevailing  attitude  toward  Spenser,  Thomson  went  further 
than  mere  external  imitation,  and  reproduced  something 
of  the  melody  and  atmosphere  of  the  Fairy  Queen.  Thus 
poetical  enthusiasm  began  the  Spenserian  revival;  it  re- 
mained for  a  great  critical  enthusiasm  to  vindicate  the 
source  of  this  inspiration  and  to  establish  it  on  the  firm 
basis  of  scholarly  study  and  intelligent  appreciation. 

The  first  attempt  at  anything  like  an  extended  criticism 
of  the  Fairy  Queen  was  in  the  two  essays,  On  Allegorical 
Poetry  and  Remarks  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen,'  which  pro- 
faced  John  Hughes's  edition  of  Spenser's  works  in  1715, 
the  first  eighteenth-century  edition.13    Steele,  in  the  540th 

people,'  whose  taste  for  Spenser  had  developed.  In  November,  1745, 
he  wrote  to  Graves  (to  whom  he  had  written  of  his  early  contempt) 
that  he  had  '  read  Spenser  once  again  and  added  full  as  much  more 
to  my  School-mistress  in  regard  to  number  of  lines;  something  in 
point  of  matter    (or  manner  rather)    which  does  not  displease  me. 

I  would  be  glad  if  Mr.  were,  upon  your  request,  to  give  his 

opinion  of  particulars,  etc'  Evidently  the  judgment  was  unfavor- 
able, for  he  wrote  the  next  year,  '  I  thank  you  for  your  perusal  of 
that  trivial  poem.  If  I  were  going  to  print  it,  I  should  give  way 
to  your  remarks  implicitly,  and  would  not  dare  to  do  otherwise. 
But  so  long  as  I  keep  it  in  manuscript,  you  will  pardon  my  silly 
prejudices,  if  I  chuse  to  read  and  shew  it  with  the  addition  of  most 
of  my  new  stanzas.  I  own,  I  have  a  fondness  for  several,  imagining 
them  to  be  more  in  Spenser's  way,  yet  more  independent  on  the 
antique  phrase,  than  any  part  of  the  poem;  and,  on  that  account. 
I  cannot  yet  prevail  on  myself  to  banish  them  entirely;  but  were  I 
to  print,  I  should  (with  some  reluctance)  give  way  to  your  senti- 
ments'  (Shenstone's  Works,  1777,  in,  pp.  105-6). 

13  And  the  first  attempt  at  an  annotated  edition.  Spenser's  Works, 
to  ichich  is  prefix' d  .  ...  an  Essay  on  Allegorical  Poetry  by  Mr. 


84  CLABISSA   E.INAKER 

Spectator,  three  years  before  had  desired  an  'Encomium 
of  Spencer]  i  that  charming  author/  like  Addison's  Milton 
papers,  but  nothing  further  than  his  own  meagre  hints 
was  forthcoming.  And  Hughes's  attitude,  like  that  of  the 
imitators,  was  wholly  apologetic. 

Hughes  seems  almost  to  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
promised  land  when  he  refused  to  examine  the  Fairy 
Queen  by  the  classical  rules  for  epic  poetry,  saying:  'As 
it  is  plain  the  Author  never  design'd  it  by  those  Rules,  I 
think  it  ought  rather  to  be  consider'd  as  a  Poem  of  a 
particular  kind,  describing  in  a  Series  of  Allegorical  Ad- 
ventures or  Episodes  the  most  noted  Virtues  and  Vices :  to 
compare  it  therefore  with  the  Models  of  Antiquity  wou'd 
be  like  drawing  a  Parallel  between  the  Roman  and  the 
Gothich  Architecture.'  14  At  first  sight  one  is  inclined  to 
think  this  very  near  to  Warton's  revolutionary  dicta,  but 
the  bungling  way  in  which  he  spoiled  the  effect  of  so  strik- 
ing a  statement  by  preparing  in  advance  a  set  of  pseudo- 
classical  and  misfit  standards  to  apply  as  he  exposed  the 
unsuitability  of  the  old,  merely  by  the  substitution  of  alle- 
gory for  epic,  shows  that  he  was  a  true  pseudo-classicist 
after  all.  He  could  not,  nor  would,  throw  off  his  allegi- 
ance to  the  ancients.  If  the  Fairy  Queen  could  not  be 
considered  as  an  epic,  it  could  be  judged  as  an  allegory, 
the  rules  of  which,  though  not  described  by  the  ancients, 
were  easily  determinable.  And  in  attempting  to  set  forth 
the  rules  for  allegorical  poetry,  he  tried  to  conform  to 
the  spirit  of  the  classical  critics  as  he  understood  it,  and 
to  illustrate  his  subject  by  examples  from  classical  poets. 
Nevertheless  he  felt  some  reluctance  in  introducing  a  sub- 
Hughes,  6  vols.,  London,  1715.  Second  edition,  1750.  There  is  a 
second  preface,  Remarks  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen.'  References  are  to 
the  second  edition. 

14  Remarks  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen,'  i,  p.  xliii. 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITEEAEY    CKITICISM  85 

ject  which  was  '  something  out  of  the  way,  and  not  ex- 
pressly treated  upon  by  those  who  have  laid  down  Rules 
for  the  Art  of  Poetry.'  15  Hughes's  ideas  of  what  should 
constitute  successful  allegory  were  therefore  embodied  in 
his  Essay  on  Allegorical  Poetry,  by  the  uncertain  light 
of  which  the  critic  hoped  '  not  only  to  discover  many  Beau- 
ties in  the  Fairy  Queen,  but  likewise  to  excuse  some  of  its 
Irregularities.'  16 

Hughes  did  not,  however,  yield  to  the  spell  of  '  magic 
Spenser's  wildly-warbled  song.'  While  he  admitted  that 
his  fable  gave  '  the  greatest  Scope  to  that  Range  of  Fancy 
which  was  so  remarkably  his  Talent,'  17  and  that  his  plan, 
though  not  well  chosen,  was  at  least  well  executed  and 
adapted  to  his  talent,  he  apologized  for  and  excused  both 
fable  and  plan  on  the  score  of  the  Italian  models  which  he 
followed,  and  the  remnants  of  the  '  old  Gothic  Chivalry ' 
which  yet  survived.  The  only  praise  he  could  give  the 
poem  was  wholly  pseudo-classical, — for  the  moral  and 
didactic  bent  which  the  poet  had  contrived  to  give  the 
allegory,18  and  for  some  fine  passages  where  the  author 
rises  above  himself  and  imitates  the  ancients.19  In  spite 
of  his  statement  that  the  Fairy  Queen  was  not  to  be 
examined  by  the  strict  rules  of  epic  poetry,  he  could  not 
free  himself  from  that  bondage,  and  the  most  of  his  essay 
is  taken  up  with  a  discussion  of  the  poem  in  the  light  of 
the  rules.  Moreover  Hughes  was  but  ill-equipped  for  his 
task ;  he  failed  even  to  realize  that  a  great  field  of  literary 
history  must  be  thoroughly  explored  before  the  task  of 
elucidating  Spenser  could  be  intelligently  undertaken,  and 
that  genuine  enthusiasm  for  the  poet  could  alone  arouse 
much  interest  in  him.     These  are  the  reasons  why  nearly 

u  Essay  on  Allegorical  Poetry,  I,  p.  xxi. 

16  Remarks  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen,'  I,  p.  xlii. 

1T  I,  p.  xliv.  "  I,  p.  xl.  "  I,  p.  1. 


\ 


86  CLARISSA   RINAKER 

forty  years  elapsed  before  the  edition  was  reprinted,  and 
why  it  failed  to  give  a  tremendous  impetus  to  the  Spen- 
serian revival.  Yet,  notwithstanding  its  defects,  it  is  ex- 
tremely significant  that  Hughes  should  have  undertaken 
at  all  the  editing  of  so  neglected  a  poet.20  It  is  a  straw 
that  points  the  direction  of  the  wind. 

The  next  attempt  at  Spenserian  criticism  was  a  small 
volume  of  Remarks  on  Spenser's  Poems  and  on  Milto7is 
'  Paradise  Regained,'  published  anonymously  in  1734,  and 
soon  recognized  as  the  work  of  Dr.  Jortin,  a  classical 
scholar  of  some  repute.  This  is  practically  valueless  as  a 
piece  of  criticism.  But  Jortin  was  at  least  partly  con- 
scious of  his  failure  and  of  a  reason  for  it,  though  he  was 
more  anxious  to  have  the  exact  text  determined  by  a  '  col- 
lation of  editions,  and  by  comparing  the  author  with  him- 
self '  than  to  furnish  an  interpretive  criticism ;  and  he 
acknowledged  himself  unwilling  to  bestow  the  necessary 
time  and  application  for  the  work,21 — a  gratifying  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  fact  that  no  valuable  work  could 
be  done  in  this  field  without  special  preparation  for  it. 

And  when  Thomas  Warton  was  able  to  bring  this  special 
preparation  for  the  first  time  to  the  study  of  the  Fairy 
Queen,  he  produced  a  revolution  in  criticism.  Freed  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  rules  by  the  perception  of  their  limita- 
tions,   he   substituted  untried   avenues   of   approach    and 

20  The  neglect  of  Spenser  is  best  shown  by  the  few  editions  of  either 
the  Fairy  Queen  or  the  complete  works  which  had  appeared  since 
the  first  three  books  of  the  former  were  published  in  1590.  Faerie 
Queene,  1st  ed.,  4to.,  1590-6;  2nd,  1596;  3rd,  fol.,  1609;  Birch  ed., 
3  vols.,  4to.,  1751.  Poetical  Works.  1st  fol.  ed.,  1611;  2nd,  1617-18; 
3rd,  1679.     Hughes,  1st  ed.,  1715,  2nd.  1750. 

21  Jortin's  conclusion  quoted  in  Nichols's  Literary  Anecdotes,  II,  p. 
53.  H.  E.  Cory  says  nothing  of  Jortin's  Remarks  in  his  monograph, 
The  Critics  of  Edmund  Spenser,  Univ.  of  California  Pub.  in  Mod. 
Phil,  II,  2,  pp.  81-182. 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  87 

justcr  standards  of  criticism,  and  revealed  beauties  which 
could  never  have  been  discovered  with  the  old  restrictions. 
That  he  should  be  without  trace  of  pseudo-classicism  is 
something  we  cannot  expect;  but  that  his  general  critical 
method  and  principles  are  ultimately  irreconcilable  with 
even  the  most  generous  interpretation  of  that  term,  is  a 
conclusion  one  cannot  escape  after  a  careful  study  of  the 
Observations  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen.' 

^Briefly,  the  causes  of  Warton's  superiority  over  all  pre- 
vious critics  of  Spenser,  the  reasons  why  he  became  through 
this  piece  of  critical  writing  the  founder  of  a  new  kind  of 
criticism,  are  four.  First,  he  recognized  the  inadequacy 
of  the  classical  rules,  as  interpreted  by  Boileau  and  other 
modern  commentators,  as  standards  for  judging  modern 
literature,  and  declared  his  independence  of  them  and  his 
intention  of  following  new  methods  based  upon  the  belief 
that  the  author's  purpose  is  at  least  as  important  a  sub- 
ject for  critical  study  as  the  critic's  theories,  and  that  pure 
imagination  is  as  important  a  factor  in  creative  literature 
as  reason.  Second,  he  introduced  the  modern  historical 
method  of  criticism  by  recognizing  that  no  work  of  art 
could  be  independently  judged,  isolated  from  the  condi- 
tions under  which  it  was  produced,  without  reference  to 
the  influences  which  determined  its  character;,  and  with- 
out considering  its  relation  to  other  literatures.  In  taking 
so  broad  a  view  of  his  subject,  Warton  was,  of  course, 
recognizing  the  necessity  for  a  comparative  study  of  litera- 
ture. In  the  third  place,  and  as  a  consequence  of  this  in- 
dependence and  this  greater  breadth  of  view,  Warton  un- 
derstood more  fully  than  his  contemporaries  the  true  rela- 
tion between  classical  and  modern  literature,  understood 
that  the  English  writers  of  the  boasted  Augustan  age,  in 
renouncing  their  heritage  from  the  middle  ages,  had  de- 
prived themselves  of  the  qualities  which  alone  could  have 


88  CLARISSA   RINAKER 

redeemed  their  desiccated  pseudo-classicism.  And  last, 
Warton  made  a  place  in  criticism  for  the  reader's  spon- 
taneous delight  and  enthusiasm. 

Few  critics  of  the  18th  cenrary  recognized  any  differ- 
ence between  their  own  rules  and  practice  and  those  of 
the  ancients,  or  saw  the  need  for  modern  standards  for 
judging  modern  poems.  Just  here  comes  the  important 
and  irreparable  break  between  Warton  and  his  contempo- 
raries. While  Hughes  and  the  rest  attempted  to  justify 
Spenser  by  pointing  out  conformities  to  the  rules  22  where 
they  existed  or  might  be  fancied,  and  condemned  his  prac- 
tice when  they  failed  to  find  any,  Warton  was  at  some 
pains  to  show  that  Hughes  failed  and  that  such  critics 
must  fail  because  their  critical  method  was  wrong.23  He 
pointed  out  that  the  Fairy  Queen  cannot  be  judged  by 
rule,  that  '  the  plan  and  conduct '  of  Spenser's  poem  '  is 
highly  exceptionable,'  c  is  confused  and  irregular,'  and  has 
'  no  general  unity  ' ;  24  it  fails  completely  when  examined 
by  the  rules.  To  Warton  this  clearly  showed  the  existence 
of  another  standard  of  criticism — not  the  Aristotelian,  but 
the  poet's :  Spenser  had  not  tried  to  write  like  Homer,  but 
like  Ariosto ;  his  standard  was  romantic,  not  classical ;  and 
he  was  to  be  judged  by  what  he  tried  to  do. 

Warton's  declaration  of  independence  of  pseudo-classical 
criticism  was  a  conscious  revolt;  yet  it  was  one  to  which 
he  made  some  effort  to  win  the  assent  of  his  contemporaries 

22  Dryden  had  done  the  same  thing  in  the  Dedication  to  the  Trans- 
lation of  Juvenal  by  pointing  out  how  the  '  character  of  Prince 
Arthur  shines  throughout  the  whole  poem,'  and  Warton  took  issue 
squarely  with  him  on  the  point  and  denied  any  such  unity.  See 
Observations,  J,  pp.  10-11.  Addison  used  the  same  method  in  his 
papers  on  Paradise  Lost.  Beni  was  probably  the  originator  of 
this  sort  of  misapplied  criticism  in  his  comparison  of  Tasso  with 
Homer  and  Virgil   (i.  p.  3). 

23  I,  pp.  llff.  24I,  p.  17. 


THOMAS    WABTON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM 


89 


by  conceding  that  Spenser's  frequent  extravagances  25  did 
violate  the  rules  approved  by  an  age  that  took  pride  m 
its  critical  taste.  His  desire  to  engage  their  interest,  how- 
ever, neither  succeeded  in  that  purpose  nor  persuaded  him 
that  those  rules  were  properly  applied  to  poems  written 
in  ignorance  of  them.  There  is  no  uncertainty,  no  com- 
promise with  pseudo-classical  criticism  in  the  flat  defiance, 
*  it  is  absurd  to  think  of  judging  either  Ariosto  or  Spenser 
by  precepts  which  they  did  not  attend  to.'  26 

Having  thus  condemned  the  accepted  standards  as  inade- 
quate for  a  just  criticism  of  the  Fairy  Queen,  Warton's 
next  purpose  was  to  find  those  by  which  it  could  be  prop- 
erly judged:  not  the  rules  of  which  the  poet  was  ignorant, 
but  the  literature  with  which  he  was  familiar.  He  recog- 
nized quite  clearly  a  distinction  between  a  classical  and' 
a  romantic  poet,  and  accounted  for  it  by  a  difference  of 
circumstances.  Warton's  even  then  extensive  knowledge 
of  the  neglected  periods  of  earlier  English  literature  gave 
him  a  power  that  most  of  his  contemporaries  lacked,  and 
enabled  him  to  see  that  Spenser's  peculiarities  were  those 
of  his  age,  that  the  '  knights  and  damsels,  the  tournaments 
and  enchantments  of  Spenser  '  were  not  oddities  but  the 
familiar  and  admired  features  of  romance,  a  prevailing 
literary  form  of  the  age,  and  that  'the  fashions  of  the 
time'  determined  Spenser's  purpose  of  becoming  a  'ro- 
mantic poet.'  27 

Warton  determined,  therefore,  not  only  to  judge  but  to 
praise  Spenser  as  a  romantic  28  poet.  He  found  that  as 
the  characteristic  appeal  of  pseudo-classical  poetry  was 
to  the  intellect,  to  the  reason,  romantic  poetry  addressed 

25 1,  p.  18.  "i,  p.  21.  "n,  p.  72. 

28  Warton  used  the  word  romantic  as  a  derivative  of  '  romance,' 
implying  the  characteristics  of  the  mediaeval  romances,  and  1  have 
used  the  word  frequently  in  this  paper  with  that  meaning. 


90 


CLARISSA    RINAKER 


itself  to  the  feelings,  to  the  imagination.  Its  excellence, 
therefore,  consisted  not  in  design  and  proportion,  but  in 
interest  and  variety  of  detail.  The-poet's  business  was  '  to 
engage  the  fancy,  and  to  interest  the  attention  by  bold 
and  striking  images,  in  the  formation,  and  disposition  of 
which,  little  labour  or  art  was  applied.  The  various  and 
the  marvellous  were  the  chief  sources  of  delight.'  20  Hence 
Spenser  had  ransacked  l  reality  and  romance,'  '  truth  and 
fiction  '  to  adorn  his  '  fairy  structure,'  and  Warton  re- 
velled in  the  result,  in  its  very  formlessness  and  richness, 
which  he  thought  preferable,  in  a  romantic  poem,  to  ex- 
actness. '  Exactness  in  his  poem,'  he  said,  '  would  have 
been  like  the  cornice  which  a  painter  introduced  in  the 
grotto  of  Calypso.  Spenser's  beauties  are  like  the  flowers 
of  Paradise.'  30 

When  beauties  thus  transcend  nature,  delight  goes  be- 
yond reason.  Warton  did  not  shrink  from  the  logical  re- 
sult of  giving  rein  to  imagination ;  he  was  willing  to  recog- 
nize the  romantic  quest  for  beauties  beyond  the  reach  of 
art,  to  sacrifice  reason  and  '  nature  methodiz'd '  in  an 
exaltation  of  a  higher  quality  which  rewarded  the  reader 
with  a  higher  kind  of  enjoyment.  '  If  the  Fairy  Queen/ 
he  said,  '  be  destitute  of  that  arrangement  and  oeconomy 
which  epic  severity  requires,  yet  we  scarcely  regret  the 
loss  of  these,  while  their  place  is  so  amply  supplied  by 
something  which  more  powerfully  attracts  us:  something 
which  engages  the  affections,  the  feelings  of  the  heart, 
rather  than  the  cold  approbation  of  the  head.  If  there  be 
any  poem  whose  graces  please,  because  they  are  situated 
beyond  the  reach  of  art,  and  where  the  force  and  faculties 
of  creative  imagination  31  delight,  because  they  are  unas- 

=°i,  p.  22.  30i,  p.  23. 

31  Without  the  same  precision  in  nomenclature  but  with  equal 
clearness  of  idea  Warton  distinguished  between  creative  and  imita- 


THOMAS    WA11TON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  91 

sisted  and  unrestrained  by  those  of  deliberate  judgment,  it 
is  this.  In  reading  Spenser,  if  the  critic  is  not  satisfied, 
yet  the  reader  is  transported.'  32 

When  Warton  thus  made  a  place  for  transport  in  a 
critical  discourse,  he  had  parted  company  with  his  con- 
temporaries and  opened  the  way  for  the  whole  romantic 
exaltation  of  feeling.  He  had  turned  from  Dr.  Johnson, 
who  condemned  '  all  power  of  fancy  over  reason  '  as  a 
'  degree  of  insanity,'  33  and  faced  toward  Blake,  who 
exalted  the  imagination  and  called  '  reason  .  .  .  the  only 
evil.'  34  Every  propriety  of  Queen  Anne  criticism  had 
now  been  violated.  Not  satisfied  with  condemning  all 
previous  Spenserian  criticism  as  all  but  nonsense,  Warton 
dared  to  place  the  uncritical  reader's  delight  above  the 
critic's  deliberate  disapproval,  and  then  to  commend  that 
enthusiasm  and  the  beauties  that  aroused  it.  In  repudiat- 
ing the  pseudo-classical  rules,  Warton  enunciated  two 
revolutionary  dicta :  there  are  other  critical  standards  than 
those  of  Boileau  and  the  ancients  (save  the  mark!)  ;  there 

tive  power  in  exactly  the  same  way  that  Coleridge  differentiated 
imagination  and  fancy.  He  did  not  compose  exact  philosophical 
definitions  of  the  two  qualities,  but  in  a  careful  contrast  between 
the  poetic  faculties  of  Spenser  and  Ariosto,  he  made  the  same  dis- 
tinction. Spenser's  power,  imagination,  he  described  as  creative, 
vital;  it  endeavours  to  body  forth  the  unsubstantial,  to  represent  by 
visible  and  external  symbols  the  ideal  and  abstracted  (n,  p.  77). 
Ariosto's  faculty,  fancy,  he  called  imitative,  lacking  in  inventive 
power  (I,  p.  308;  n,  p.  78).  Although  Warton  at  times  applied 
the  term  imagination  loosely  to  both,  there  was  no  confusion  of  ideas; 
when  he  used  both  terms  it  was  with  the  difference  in  meaning  just 
described.  In  speaking  of  the  effect  of  the  marvels  of  romance  upon 
the  poetic  faculty  he  said  they  '  rouse  and  invigorate  all  the  powers 
of  imagination'  and  'store  the  fancy  with  .  .  .  images'  (n,  p. 
323). 

32 1,  p.  24. 

33  Rasselas,  Ch.  xliv. 

34  Crabbe  Robinson's  Diary.     Ed.  Sadler,  Boston,  1870,  n,  p.  43. 


92  CLARISSA   BINAKEE 

are  other  poetical  beauties  than  those  of  Pope  and  '  nature 
niethodiz'd.' 

Revolutionary  as  he  was  in  his  enjoyment  of  Spenser's 
fable,  Warton  had  not  at  the  time  he  wrote  the  Observa- 
tions freed  himself  from  the  pseudo-classical  theories  of 
versification  35  and  he  agreed  with  his  predecessors  in  his 
discussion  of  this  subject.  Although  he  did  not  feel  the 
romanticist's  enthusiasm  for  Spenser's  versification,  he 
was  nevertheless  sufficiently  the  poet  to  appreciate  and  to 
enjoy  his  success  with  it.  '  It  is  indeed  surprising,'  he 
said,  '  that  Spenser  should  execute  a  poem  of  uncommon 
length,  with  so  much  spirit  and  ease,  laden  as  he  was  with 
so  many  shackles,  and  embarrassed  with  so  complicated 
a  bondage  of  riming.  .  .  .  His  sense  and  sound  are  equally 
flowing  and  uninterrupted.'  36  Similarly,  with  respect  to 
language,  we  neither  expect  nor  find  enthusiasm.  Warton 
thought  Jonson  '  perhaps  unreasonable,'  37  and  found  the 
origin  of  his  language  in  the  language  of  his  age,  as  he 
found  the  origin  of  his  design  in  its  romances.  Long  ac- 
quaintance enabled  him  to  read  the  Fairy  Queen  with 
ease;  he  denied  that  Spenser's  language  was  either  so 
affected  or  so  obsolete  as  it  was  generally  supposed,  and 
asserted  that  '  For  many  stanzas  together  we  may  fre- 
quently read  him  with  as  much  facility  as  we  can  the  same 
number  of  lines  in  Shakespeare.'  38     In  his  approval  and 

85  Somewhat  later  he  took  a  not  insignificant  part  in  the  romantic 
movement  in  poetry. 

36  i,  pp.  168-170. 

37  In  his  opinion  that  '  Spenser,  in  affecting  the  ancients,  writ  no 
language'   (i,  p.  181). 

38 1,  p.  185.  This  parallel  does  not  greatly  help  the  case  in  an  age 
when  Atterbury  could  write  to  Pope  that  he  found  '  the  hardest  part 
of  Chaucer  .  .  .  more  intelligible '  than  some  parts  of  Shakespeare 
and  that  '  not  merely  through  the  faults  of  the  edition,  but  the 
obscurity  of  the  writer'  (Pope's  Works,  Elwin-Courthope  ed.,  ix, 
p.  26). 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITERAEY    CRITICISM  93 

appreciation  of  Spenser's  moral  purpose  Warton  was,  of 
course,  nearer  to  his  pseudo-classical  predecessors  than  to 
his  romantic  followers;  however,  without  relinquishing 
that  prime  virtue  of  the  old  school,  the  solidity  that  comes 
from  well-established  principles,  he  attained  to  new  vir- 
tues, greater  catholicity  of  taste  and  flexibility  of  judg- 
ment. 

In  seeking  in  the  literature  of  and  before  the  sixteenth 
century  and  in  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  '  spacious 
times  of  Great  Elizabeth  '  for  the  explanation  of  Spenser's 
poem — so  far  as  explanation  of  genius  is  possible — Warton 
was,  as  has  been  said,  laying  the  foundations  of  modern 
historical  criticism.  Some  slight  progress  had  been  made 
in  this  direction  before,  but  without  important  results. 
Warton  was  by  no  means  original  in  recognizing  Spenser's 
debt  to  the  Italian  romances  which  were  so  popular  in  his 
day,  and  to  Ariosto  in  particular.  And  many  critics  agreed 
that  he  was  '  led  by  the  prevailing  notions  of  his  age  to 
write  an  irregular  and  romantic  poem.'  They,  however, 
regarded  his  age  as  one  of  barbarity  and  ignorance  of  the 
rules,  and  its  literature  as  unworthy  of  study  and  destitute 
of  intrinsic  value.  No  critic  before  Warton  had  realized 
the  importance  of  supplementing  an  absolute  with  an  his- 
torical criticism,  of  reconstructing,  so  far  as  possible,  a 
poet's  environment  and  the  conditions  under  which  he 
worked,  in  order  to  judge  his  poetry.  '  In  reading  the 
works  of  a  poet  who  lived  in  a  remote  age,'  he  said,  '  it  is 
necessary  that  we  should  look  back  upon  the  customs  and 
manners  which  prevailed  in  that  age.  We  should  en- 
deavour to  place  ourselves  in  the  writer's  situation  and 
circumstances.  Hence  we  shall  become  better  enabled  to 
discover  how  his  turn  of  thinking,  and  manner  of  com- 
posing, were  influenced  by  familiar  appearances  and  es- 
tablished objects,  which  are  utterly  different  from  those 


U 


94  CLARISSA   KINAKEE 

with  which  we  are  at  present  surrounded.'  39  And,  realiz- 
ing that  the  neglect  of  these  details  was  fatal  to  good 
criticism,  that  the  '  commentator,40  whose  critical  en- 
quiries are  employed  on  Spenser,  Jonson,  and  the  rest  of 
our  elder  poets,  will  in  vain  give  specimens  of  his  classical 
erudition,  unless,  at  the  same  time,  he  brings  to  his  work 
a  mind  intimately  acquainted  with  those  books,  which 
though  now  forgotten,  were  yet  in  common  use  and  high 
repute  about  the  time  in  which  his  authors  respectively 
wrote,  and  which  they  consequently  must  have  read,'  41  he 
resolutely  reformed  his  own  practice. 

Warton  not  only  perceived  the  necessity  of  the  historical 
method  of  studying  the  older  poets,  but  he  had  acquired 
what  very  few  of  his  contemporaries  had  attained,  suffi- 
cient knowledge  of  the  earlier  English  literature  to  under- 
take such  a  study  of  Spenser.  He  embarked  upon  the  study 
of  the  Fairy  Queen,  its  sources  and  literary  background, 
with  a  fund  of  knowledge  which,  however  much  later 
scholars,  who  have  taken  up  large  holdings  in  the  territory 
charted  by  that  pioneer,  may  unjustly  scorn  its  superfi- 
ciality or  inexactness,  was  for  that  time  quite  exceptional, 
and  which  could  not  fail  to  illuminate  the  poem  to  the 
point  of  transfiguration.  Every  reader  of  Spenser  had  ac- 
cepted his  statement  that  he  took  Ariosto  as  his  model, 

36  it,  p.  71. 

40  Warton  ably  and  sharply  met  Pope's  attack  on  Theobald  for 
including  in  his  edition  of  Shakespeare  a  sample  of  his  sources,  of 

"  ' All   such   reading   as   never   was   read,'  "    and   concluded   '  If 

Shakespeare  is  worth  reading,  he  is  worth  explaining,  and  the  re- 
searches used  for  so  valuable  and  elegant  a  purpose,  merit  the  thanks 
of  genius  and  candour,  not  the  satire  of  prejudice  and  ignorance ' 
(ii,  p.  319).  In  similar  vein  he  rebuked  such  of  his  own  critics 
as  found  his  quotations  from  the  romances  '  trifling  and  uninterest- 
ing':  'such  readers  can  have  no  taste  for  Spenser'    (i,  p.  91). 

41  n,  pp.  317-18. 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  95 

but  no  one  before  Warton  bad  remarked  another  model, 
one  closer  in  respect  of  matter,  which  the  poet  no  doubt 
thought  too  obvious  to  mention,  the  old  romances  of  chiv- 
alry. Warton  observed  that  where  Spenser's  plan  is  least 
like  Ariosto's,  it  most  resembles  the  romances;  that,  al- 
though he  '  formed  his  Faerie  Queene  upon  the  fanciful 
plan  of  Ariosto,'  he  formed  the  particular  adventures 
of  his  knight  upon  the  romances.  '  Spenser's  first  book  is,' 
he  said,  '  a  regular  and  precise  imitation  of  such  a  series 
of  action  as  we  frequently  find  in  books  of  chivalry.'  42 

In  proof  of  Spenser's  indebtedness  to  the  romances 
Warton  cited  the  prevalence  of  romances  of  chivalry  in 
his  day,  and  pointed  out  particular  borrowings  from  this 
popular  poetry.  In  the  first  place  he  insisted  again  and 
again  not  only  that  the  '  encounters  of  chivalry  '  which 
appeared  so  extraordinary  to  modern  eyes  were  familiar 
to  readers  in  Spenser's  day,43  but  that  the  practices  of 
chivalry  were  even  continued  to  some  extent.44  Warton's 
close  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury and  before  showed  him  that  the  matter  of  the  ro- 
mances was  common  property  and  had  permeated  other 
works  than  those  of  media3val  poets.  He  discovered  that 
the  story  of  Arthur,  from  which  Spenser  borrowed  most 

42 1,  p.  26. 

43  And  even  later  to  the  time  of  Milton.  Warton  found  Milton's 
mind  deeply  tinctured  with  romance  reading  and  his  imagination  and 
poetry  affected  thereby  (i,  pp.  257  and  350).  Even  Dryden  wanted 
to  write  an  epic  about  Arthur  or  the  Black  Prince  but  on  the  model 
of  Virgil  and  Spenser,  not  Spenser  and  the  romances  (Essay  on 
Satire ) . 

44 1,  p.  27  and  ir,  pp.  71-72.     Warton  cited  Holinshed's  Chronicles 
(Stowe's  contin.)    where  is  an  account  of  a  tourney  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  which  Fulk  Grevill  and  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,   among  others,   entered   the  lists    (Holin.,   Chron.    ed     1S08 
rv,  pp.  435  ff.). 


96  CLAEISSA    EINAKEE 

was  so  generally  known  and  so  great  a  favourite  that  inci- 
dents from  it  were  made  the  basis  for  entertainment  of 
Elizabeth  at  Kenilworth,45  and  that  Arthur  and  his 
knights  were  alluded  to  by  writers  so  various  as  Caxton, 
Ascham,  Sidney,  Puttenham,  Bacon,  and  Jonson ;  46  that 
even  Ariosto  47  himself  borrowed  from  the  story  of  Arthur. 
At  the  same  time  his  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  romances 
enabled  him  to  point  out  among  those  which  most  directly 
influenced  the  Fairy  Queen,  Malory's  Morte  Arthur,  the 
largest  contributor,  of  course,  from  which  such  details  as 
the  story  of  Sir  Tristram,  King  Ryence  and  the  mantle 
of  beards,  the  holy  Grail,  and  the  Blatant  Beast  were 
drawn;  48  Bevis  of  Southampton,  which  furnished  the  in- 
cident of  the  well  of  marvellous  healing  power ;  49  the  bal- 
lad of  the  Boy  and  the  Mantle,  from  the  French  romance, 
Le  Court  Mantel,  which  suggested  Spenser's  conceit  of 
Florimel's  girdle.50  Warton  also  carefully  discussed  Spen- 
ser's fairy  mythology,  which  supplanted  the  classical  myth- 
ology as  his  romantic  adventures  replaced  those  of  anti- 

45  Warton  quotes  Laneham's  '  Letter  wherein  part  of  the  Entertain- 
ment untoo  the  Queen's  Majesty  at  Killinworth  Castl  in  Warwick- 
sheer  in  this  Soomer's  progress,  1575,  is  signified,'  and  Gascoigne's 
'  Pleasures  of  Kenilworth  Castle/  Works,  1576. 

46 1,  pp.  50-74.  « i,  pp.  27-57. 

47 1,  pp.  53-57.  49 1,  pp.  69-71. 

50 1,  p.  76.  Warton  says  an  '  ingenious  correspondent  communi- 
cated '  to  him  this  '  old  ballad  or  metrical  romance.'  Part  of  Le 
Court  Mantel  he  found  in  Sainte  Pelaye's  M6moires  sur  Vancienne 
Chevalerie,  1760.  Other  details,  which  could  not  be  traced  to  par- 
ticular romances,  Warton  attributed  to  '  a  mind  strongly  tinctured 
with  romantic  ideas.'  One  of  these,  the  custom  of  knights  swearing 
on  their  swords,  Upton  bad  explained  as  derived  from  the  custom  of 
the  Huns  and  Goths,  related  by  Jornandes  and  Ammianus  Marcelli- 
nus,  but  Warton  pointed  out  that  it  was  much  more  probably  de- 
rived from  the  more  familiar  romances  (n,  p.  65).  A  Bodleian  MS. 
containing  Sir  Degore  and  other  romances  is  quoted  from  and 
described  (n,  pp.  5-9). 


THOMAS    WABTON    AND   XJTEEAKY    CRITICISM  97 

quity,   ascribing  its  origin  to  romance  and  folk-lore  of 
Celtic  and  ultimately  Oriental  origin.51 

As  in  the  case  of  mediaeval  romance,  Warton  was  the 
first  critic  to  consider  in '  any  detail  Spenser's  indebted- 
ness to  Chaucer.  Antiquarians  and  a  few  poets  had  been 
mildly  interested  in  Chaucer,  but  his  importance  for  the 
study  of  the  origins  of  English  poetry  had  been  ignored 
in  the  prevalent  delusion  that  the  classics  were  the  ulti- 
mate sources  of  poetry.  Dryden,  to  be  sure,  had  remarked 
that  Spenser  imitated  Chaucer's  language,52  and  subse- 
quent readers,  including  Warton,  concurred.  But  it  still 
remained  for  Warton  to  point  out  that  Spenser  was  also 
indebted  to  Chaucer  for  ideas,  and  to  show  the  extent  and 
nature  of  his  debt  by  collecting  i  specimens  of  Spenser's 
imitations  from  Chaucer,  both  of  language  and  senti- 
ment.' 53  Without,  of  course,  attempting  to  exhaust  the 
subjeclt,  Warton  collected  enough  parallel  passages  to 
prove  that  Spenser  was  not  only  an  '  attentive  reader  and 
professed  admirer,'  but  also  an  imitator  of  Chaucer.  For 
example,  he  pointed  out  that  the  list  of  trees  in  the  wood 
of  error  was  more  like  Chaucer's  in  the  Assembly  of  Fowls 
than  similar  passages  in  classical  poets  mentioned  by  Jor- 
tin ;  54  that  he  had  borrowed  the  magic  mirror  which  Mer- 

51 1,  pp.  77-89.  Warton  often  used  the  terms  Celtic  and  Norse  very 
loosely  without  recognizing  the  difference.  Like  Huet  and  Mallet 
and  other  students  of  romance  he  was  misled  by  the  absurd  and 
fanciful  ethnologies  in  vogue  in  the  17th  and  18th  centuries.  For 
his  theory  of  romance  see  his  dissertation  On  the  Origin  of  Romantic 
Fiction  in  Europe  prefixed  to  the  first  volume  of  his  History  of  Eng- 
lish Poetry,  1774.  In  spite  of  the  absurdity  of  his  theory  as  a  whole, 
many  details  are  surprisingly  correct  and  illuminating. 

"Essay  on  Satire.  Dryden  frequently  referred  to  Chaucer  as- 
Spenser's  master,  meaning  in  the  matter  of  language.  See  also 
Dedication  of  the  Pastorals  and  Preface  to  the  Fables. 

63  Section  V,  Of  Spenser's  Imitations  from  Chaucer. 

M  In  his  Remarks  on  Spenser's  Poems.    See  Observations  I,  p.  190. 


98  CLARISSA   EIWAKEE 

lin  gave  Ryence  from  the  Squires  Tale,55  and  from  the 
Romance  of  the  Rose,  the  conceit  of  Cupid  dressed  in  flow- 
ers.56 By  a  careful  comparison  with  Chaucer's  language, 
Warton  was  able  to  explain  some  doubtful  passages  as  well 
as  to  show  Spenser's  draughts  from  '  the  well  of  English 
undefiled.' 

One  can  scarcely  overestimate  the  importance  of  War- 
ton's  evident  first-hand  knowledge  of  Chaucer  in  an  age 
when  he  was  principally  known  only  through  Dryden's 
and  Pope's  garbled  modernizations,  or  Milton's  reference 
to  him  who 

left  half-told 

The  story  of  Cambuscan  bold. 

Warton  was  not  satisfied  that  Chaucer  should  be  studied 
merely  to  illustrate  Spenser;  he  recognized  his  intrinsic 
value  as  well,  and  suffered  his  enthusiasm  for  Chaucer  to 
interrupt  the  thread  of  his  criticism  of  Spenser,  while  he 
lauded  and  recommended  to  his  neglectful  age  the  charms 
of  the  older  poet.57  To  be  sure  Warton's  reasons  for  ad- 
miring Chaucer  were  somewhat  too  romantic  to  convince 
an  age  that  preferred  regular  beauties ;  his  '  romantic 
arguments ',  '  wildness  of  painting ',  '  simplicity  and 
antiquity  of  expression  ',  though  '  pleasing  to  the  imagina- 
tion '  and  calculated  to  '  transport  us  into  some  fairy 
region  '  were  certainly  not  the  qualities  to  attract  Upton 

66 1,  p.  205.  Warton  showed  many  instances  of  Spenser's  interest 
in  Cambuscan,  including  his  continuation  of  part  of  the  story.  See 
also  pp.  210  ff. 

m  i,  p.  221. 

07  Warton  found  opportunity  to  express  more  fully  his  enthusiasm 
for  Chaucer  in  a  detailed  study  comparable  to  this  of  Spenser,  in  his 
History  of  English  Poetry  twenty  years  later.  This  contributed  quite 
as  much  to  the  restoration  of  Chaucer  as  did  Tyrwhitt's  accurate 
elucidation  of  textual  difficulties. 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITEEARY    CEITICISM  99 

or  Hughes  or  Dr.  Johnson.  Unlike  the  pseudo-classical 
admirers  of  Chaucer,  Warton  held  that  to  read  modern 
imitations  was  not  to  know  Chaucer ;  that  to  provide  such 
substitutes  was  to  contribute  rather  to  the  neglect  than  to 
the  popularity  of  the  original.  With  characteristic  sound- 
ness of  scholarship  Warton  condemned  the  prevalence  of 
translations  because  they  encouraged  '  indolence  and 
illiteracy ',  displaced  the  originals  and  thus  gradually 
vitiated  public  taste.58 

The  study  of  Spenser's  age  yielded  the  third  element 
which  Warton  introduced  into  Spenserian  criticism — the 
influence  of  the  mediaeval  moralities  and  allegorical 
masques.  Warton's  study  of  Spenser's  allegory  is  of  quite 
another  sort  than  Hughes's  essay.  Instead  of  trying  to  con- 
coct a  set  of  a  'priori  rules  for  a  kind  of  epic  which  should 
find  its  justification  in  its  moral,  Warton,  as  usual,  was 
concerned  with  forms  of  allegory  as  they  actually  existed 
and  were  familiar  to  his  poet,  and  with  the  history  of  alle- 
gorical poetry  in  England.  Without  denying  the  impor- 
tant influence  of  Ariosto,  he  pointed  out  that  his  prede- 
cessors had  erred  in  thinking  the  Orlando  Furioso  a  suffi- 
cient model ;  he  saw  that  the  characters  of  Spenser's  alle- 
gory much  more  resembled  the  '  emblematical  personages, 
visibly  decorated  with  their  proper  attributes,  and  actually 
endued  with  speech,  motion,  and  life '  59  with  which  Spen- 
ser was  familiar  upon  the  stage,  than  the  less  symbolical 

58 1,  pp.  269-71.  Warton  extended  this  criticism  to  translations  of 
classical  authors  as  well.  Of  course  the  greatest  of  the  classicists, 
Dryden  and  Johnson,  realized  the  limitations  of  translation,  that  it 
was  only  a  makeshift.  See  Preface  to  translation  of  Ovid's  epistle, 
to  Sylvae  and  to  the  Fables,  and  Boswell's  Johnson,  Hill  Ed.,  m,  p. 
36.  But  the  popularity  of  Dryden's  translations,  and  the  large  num- 
ber of  translations  and  imitations  that  appeared  during  his  and  suc- 
ceeding generations,  justified  Warton's  criticism. 

68  it,  p.  78. 


100  CLARISSA   RINAKER 

characters  of  Ariosto.  Warton  could  support  his  position 
by  quoting  references  in  the  Fairy  Queen  to  masques  and 
dumb  shows,60  and  by  tracing  somewhat  the  progress  of 
allegory  in  English  poetry  before  Spenser.61  It  is  charac- 
teristic that  he  should  not  have  been  satisfied  to  observe 
that  allegory  was  popular  in  Spenser's  age,  but  that  he 
should  wish  to  explain  it  by  a  '  retrospect  of  English 
poetry  from  the  age  of  Spenser.'  62  Superficial  and  hasty 
as  this  survey  is,  it  must  have  confirmed  Warton's  opinion 
that  a  thorough  exploration  of  early  English  poetry  was 
needed,  and  so  anticipated  his  magnum  opus.  And  we 
can  find  little  fault  with  its  conclusions,  even  when  he 
says  that  this  poetry  '  principally  consisted  in  visions  and 
allegories  '  when  he  could  add  as  a  matter  of  information, 
'  there  are,  indeed,  the  writings  of  some  English  poets  now 
remaining,  who  wrote  before  Gower  or  Chaucer.' 

In  rejecting  the  conclusions  of  pseudo-classical  criti- 
cism, in  regarding  Spenser  as  the  heir  of  the  middle  ages, 
Warton  did  not  by  any  means  overlook  the  influence  of 
the  renaissance,  of  the  classical  revival,  upon  his  poetry. 
His  study  of  the  classical  sources  from  which  Spenser  em- 
bellished his  plan  63  is  as  careful  and  as  suggestive  as  his 
study  of  the  mediaeval  sources ;  it  is  only  not  so  strikingly 
new.  His  attack  on  Scaliger,  who  subordinated  a  com- 
parative method  to  the  demonstration  of  a  priori  conclu- 
sions, shows  that  he  was  a  sounder  classicist  than  that 

60  II,  pp.  78-81.  '  Spenser  expressly  denominates  his  most  exquisite 
groupe  of  allegorical  figures,  the  Maske  of  Cupid.  Thus,  without  re- 
curring to  conjecture,  his  own  words  evidently  demonstrate  that  he 
sometimes  had  representations  of  this  sort  in  his  eye.' 

81  ii,  pp.  93-103.  Beginning  with  Adam  Davy  and  the  author  of 
Piers  Plowman.  Like  Spence,  Warton  recognized  in  Sackville's 
Induction  the  nearest  approach  to  Spenser,  and  a  probable  source  of 
influence  upon  him. 

"n,  p.  92.  «i,  pp.  92-156. 


THOMAS    WABTON   AND    LITEEABY    CRITICISM  101 

pseudo-classical  leader.  Scaliger,  he  said,  more  than  once 
'  betrayed  his  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  ancient  po- 
etry ' ;  64  he  '  had  no  notion  of  simple  and  genuine  beauty ; 
nor  had  ever  considered  the  manners  and  customs  which 
prevailed  in  early  times.'  65  Warton  was  a  true  classi- 
cist in  his  admiration  for  Homer  and  Aristotle,  and  in 
his  recognition  of  them  as  the  '  genuine  and  uncorrupted 
sources  of  ancient  poetry  and  ancient  criticism ' ;  66  but, 
as  has  been  said,  he  did  not  make  the  mistake  of  supposing 
them  the  sources  of  modern  poetry  and  criticism  as  well. 

Warton  shows  in  this  essay  an  extraordinarily  clear 
recognition  of  the  relation  between  classical,  mediaeval  and 
modern  literatures,  and  a  corresponding  adaptation  of  cri- 
ticism to  it.  \Bv  a  wide  application  of  the  historical 
method,  he  saw  that  English  poetry  was  the  Joint  product 
of  two  principal  strains,  the  ancient  or  classical,  and  the 
mediaeval  or  romantic;  and  that  the  poet  or  critic  who 
neglected  either  disclaimed  half  his  birthright.  The  po- 
etry of  Spenser's  age,  Warton  perceived,  drew  from  both 
sources.  Although  the  study  of  the  ancient  models  was 
renewed,  the  '  romantic  manner  of  poetical  composition 
introduced  and  established  by  the  Provencial  bards  '  was 
not  superseded  by  a  '  newer  and  more  legitimate  taste  of 
writing.'  67  And  Warton  as  a  critic  accepted — as  Scaliger 
would  not — the  results  of  his  historical  study ;  he  admired 
and  desired  the  characteristic  merits  of  classical  poetry, 
1  justness  of  thought  and  design,'  '  decorum,'  '  uniform- 
ity,' 68  he  'so  far  conformed  to  the  reigning  maxims  of 
modern  criticism,  as  ...  to  recommend  classical  propri- 
ety ' ;  69  but  he  wished  them  completed  and  adorned  with 
the  peculiar  imaginative  beauties  of  the  '  dark  ages,'  those 

"i,  p.  147.  «i,  p.  i.  «If  p.  2. 

"i,  p.  133.  "I,  p.  2.  •  ii,  pp.  324-5. 


102 


CLARISSA   EINAKEE 


fictions  which  '  rouse  and  invigorate  all  the  powers  of 
imagination  [and]  store  the  fancy  with  those  sublime  and 
charming  images,  which  true  poetry  best  delights  to  dis- 
play.7 70 

The  inevitable  result  of  recognizing  the  relation  between 
the  classical  and  romantic  sources  of  literature  was  con- 
tempt for  pseudo-classicism,  for  those  poets  and  critics  who 
rejected  the  beauties  of  romance  for  the  less  natural  per- 
fections approved  by  the  classical  and  French  theorists, 
who  aped  the  ancients  without  knowing  them  and  despised 
their  own  romantic  ancestry.  The  greatest  English  poets, 
Warton  perceived,  were  those  who  combined  both  elements 
in  their  poetry ;  those  who  rejected  either  fell  short  of  the 
highest  rank.  And  therefore  he  perceived  the  loss  to  Eng- 
lish poetry  when,  after  the  decline  of  romance  and  allegory, 
'  a  poetry  succeeded,  in  which  imagination  gave  way  to 
correctness,  sublimity  of  description  to  delicacy  of  senti- 
ment, and  majestic  imagery  to  conceit  and  epigram.'  War- 
ton's  brief  summary  of  this  poetry  points  out  its  weakness. 
i  Poets  began  now  to  be  more  attentive  to  words,  than  to 
things  and  objects.  The  nicer  beauties  of  happy  expres- 
sion were  preferred  to  the  daring  strokes  of  great  con- 
ception. Satire,  that  bane  of  the  sublime,  was  imported 
from  France.  The  muses  were  debauched  at  court;  and 
polite  life,  and  familiar  manners,  became  their  only  themes. 
The  simple  dignity  of  Milton  71  was  either  entirely  ne- 
glected, or  mistaken  for  bombast  and  insipidity,  by  the 
refined  readers  of  a  dissolute  age,  whose  taste  and  morals 
were  equally  vitiated.'  72 

The  culminating — perhaps  the  crowning — glory  of  War- 

70  ii,  pp.  322-3. 

"There  is  a  digression  on  Milton  in  the  Observations   (i,  pp.  335- 
353)  the  prelude  to  his  edition  of  Milton,  1785  and  1791. 
"  ii,  pp.  106-8. 


THOMAS    WAETON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  103 

ton's  first  piece  of  critical  writing  is  his  keen  delight  in 
the  task.  Addison  had  praised  and  popularized  criti- 
cism,73 but  with  reservations;  and  most  people — even 
until  recent  times  (if  indeed  the  idea  has  now  wholly  dis- 
appeared from  the  earth) — would  agree  with  Warton  that 
the  '  business  of  criticism  is  commonly  laborious  and  dry.' 
Yet  he  affirms  that  his  work  '  has  proved  a  most  agreeable 
task  ' ;  that  it  has  '  more  frequently  amused  than  fatigued 
[his]  attention,'  and  that  '  much  of  the  pleasure  that 
Spenser  experienced  in  composing  the  Fairy  Queen,  must, 
in  some  measure,  be  shared  by  his  commentator;  and  the 
critic,  on  this  occasion,  may  speak  in  the  words,  and  with 
the  rapture,  of  the  poet.' 

The  wayes  through  which  my  weary  steppes  I  guyde 

In  this  delightfull  land  of  faerie, 

Are  so  exceeding  spacious  and  wyde, 

And  sprinkled  with  such  sweet  varietie  l' ' 

Of  all  that  pleasant  is  to  ear  or  eye, 

That  I  nigh  ravisht  with  rare  thoughts  delight, 

My  tedious  travel  do  forgett  thereby: 

And  when  I  gin  to  feele  decay  of  might, 

It  strength  to  me  supplies,  and  cheares  my  dulled  spright. 

Warton's  real  classicism  and  his  endeavours  to  carry  his 
contemporaries  with  him  by  emphasizing  wherever  pos- 
sible his  accord  with  them,  blinded  them  for  a  time  to  the 
strongly  revolutionary  import  of  the  Observations  on  the 
'  Fairy  Queen,'  and  the  book  was  well  received  by  pseudo- 
classical  scholars.  Its  scholarly  merits  and  the  impulse 
it  gave  to  the  study  of  literature  were  generously  praised 
by  Dr.  Johnson.74     This  is  however  scarcely  a  fair  test; 

73  In  his  critical  essays  in  the  Spectator. 

"July  16,  1754.  'I  now  pay  you  a  very  honest  acknowledgement, 
for  the  advancement  of  the  literature  of  our  native  country.  You 
have  shewn  to  all,  who  shall  hereafter  attempt  the  study  of  our 
ancient  authours,  the  way  to  success;  by  directing  them  to  the  peru- 


104  CLAEISSA   EINAKEE 

for  the  '  watch-dog  of  classicism,"  although  an  indifferent 
scholar  when  compared  with  Warton,  had  an  almost  om- 
nivorous thirst  for  knowledge,  and  although  he  despised 
research  for  its  own  sake,  his  nearest  sympathy  with  the 
romantic  movement  was  when  its  researches  tended  to 
increase  the  sum  of  human  knowledge.  Warburton  was 
delighted  with  the  Observations,  and  told  Warton  so.75 
Walpole  complimented  the  author  upon  it,  though  he  nad 
no  fondness  for  Spenser.76  The  reviewer  for  the  Monthly 
Review  77  showed  little  critical  perception.  Although  he 
discussed  the  book  section  by  section,  he  discovered  noth- 
ing extraordinary  in  it,  nothing  but  the  usual  influence  of 
Ariosto,  defects  of  the  language,  parallel  passage  and 
learned  citation ;  and  he  reached  the  height  of  inadequacy 
when  he  thus  commended  Warton's  learning :  '  Upon  the 
whole,  Mr.  Warton  seems  to  have  studied  this  author  with 
much  attention,  and  has  obliged  us  with  no  bad  prelude 
for  the  edition,  of  which  he  advises  us.78     His  acquaint- 

sal  of  the  books  which  those  authours  had  read.  Of  this  method, 
Hughes  and  men  much  greater  than  Hughes,  seem  never  to  have 
thought.  The  reason  why  the  authours,  which  are  yet  read,  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  are  so  little  understood,  is,  that  they  are  read 
alone;  and  no  help  is  borrowed  from  those  who  lived  with  them, 
or  before  them'   (Boswell's  Johnson,  Hill  Ed.,  i,  p.  270). 

76  Warburton's  Letters,  No.  clvti,  Nov.  30,  1762.  Works,  xm, 
p.  338. 

76  Walpole  to  Warton,  October  30,  1767.     Walpole's  Letters,  Toyn- 
bee  Ed.,  vii,  p.  144. 
"August,  1754,  xi,  pp.  112-124. 

78  Probably  Upton's  Edition  of  the  Fairy  Queen,  which  is  frequently 
referred  to  in  the  second  edition  of  the  Observations.  There  is  ample 
evidence  in  Johnson's  letters  and  Warton's  comments  upon  them,  as 
well  as  his  own  manuscript  notes  in  his  copy  of  Spenser's  Works 
that  he  intended  a  companion  work  of  remarks  on  the  best  of  Spen- 
ser's works,  but  this  made  so  little  progress  that  it  cannot  have  been 
generally  known.  See  Boswell's  Johnson,  I,  p.  276,  and  Warton's 
copy  of  Spenser's  works,  ed.  1617.  This  quarto  volume,  which  I  have 
examined  in  the  British  Museum,  contains  copious  notes  which  sub- 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  105 

ance  with  our  earliest  writers  must  have  qualified  him 
with  such  a  relish  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  dialect,  as  few  poets, 
since  Prior,,  seem  to  have  imbibed.'  A  scurrilous  anony- 
mous pamphlet,  The  Observer  Observ'd,  or  Remarks  on 
a  certain  curious  Tract,  intitVd,  '  Observations  of  the 
Faiere  Queen  of  Spencer,'  by  Thomas  Warton,  A.  M.,  etc., 
which  appeared  two  years  after  the  Observations,  deserved 
the  harsh  treatment  it  received  at  the  hands  of  the  re- 
viewers.79 The  immediate  results  on  the  side  of  Spen- 
serian criticism  were  not  striking.  Two  editions  of  the 
Fairy  Queen,  by  John  Upton  and  Ealph  Church,  appeared 
in  1758.  Of  these,  the  first  was  accused  at  once  of  bor- 
rowing without  acknowledgment  from  Warton's  Observa- 
tions; 80  the  second  is  described  as  having  notes  little 
enlightening;  81  both  editors  were  still  measuring  Spenser 
by  the  ancients.82 

From  this  time  the  Spenserian  movement  was  wholly 
poetical.  Warton's  essay  put  a  new  seal  of  critical  ap- 
proval upon  the  Fairy  Queen  and  Spenser's  position  as 
the  poet's  poet  was  established  with  the  new  school.  He 
was  no  longer  regarded  judicially  as  an  admirable  poet  who 
unfortunately'  chose  inferior  models  for  verse  and  fable 
with  which  to  present  his  moral;  he  was  enthusiastically 
adopted  as  an  inexhaustible  source  of  poetic  inspiration,  of 
imagination,  of  charming  imagery,  of  rich  colour,  of  elu- 
sive mystery,  of  melodious  verse. 

sequently  formed  the  basis  for  the  Observations.  The  notes  continue 
partly  through  the  shorter  poems  as  well  as  the  Fairy  Queen.  Some 
of  them  were  evidently  made  for  the  second  edition,  for  they  contain 
references  to  Upton's  edition. 

78  Mon.  Rev.,  July,  1756,  xv,  p.  90.    Grit.  Rev.,  May,  1756,  I,  p.  374. 

80  An  impartial  Estimate   of  the  Rev.   Mr.    Upton's  notes   on  the 
'  Fairy  Queen,'  reviewed  in  Grit.  Rev.,  vm,  pp.  82  ff . 

81  Grit.  Rev.,  vii,  p.  106. 

82  H.  E.  Cory:  The  Critics  of  Edmund  Spenser,  Univ.  of  California 
Pub.  in  Mod.  Phil,  n,  2,  pp.  81-182,  pp.  149-50. 


106  CLARISSA   BINAKEE 

Although  Warton's  pseudo-classical  contemporaries  did 
not  perceive  the  full  significance  of  his  study  of  Spenser, 
his  general  program  began  to  be  accepted  and  followed; 
and  his  encouragement  of  the  study  of  mediaeval  insti- 
tutions and  literature  gave  a  great  impetus  to  the  new 
romantic  movement.  His  followers  were,  however,  often 
credited  with  the  originality  of  their  master,  and  their 
work  was  apt  to  arouse  stronger  protest  from  the  pseudo- 
classicists.83  When  Hurd's  very  romantic  Letters  on 
Chivalry  and  Romance  appeared,  they  were  credited 
with  having  influenced  Warton  to  greater  tolerance  of 
romance  and  chivalry.84     This  unjust  conclusion  was  de- 

83  While  even  Dr.  Johnson  had  only  praise  for  the  Observations, 
Joseph  Warton's  Essay  on  Pope,  on  the  whole  a  less  revolutionary 
piece  of  criticism,  touched  a  more  sensitive  point.  He  found  the 
essay  instructive,  and  recommended  it  as  a  '  just  specimen  of  liter- 
ary moderation'  (Johnson's  Works,  Ed.  1825,  v,  p.  670).  But  as 
an  attack  on  the  reputation  of  the  favourite  Augustan  poet,  its 
drift  was  evident,  and  pernicious.  This  heresy  was  for  him  an  expla- 
nation of  Warton's  delay  in  continuing  it.  '  I  suppose  he  finds  him- 
self a  little  disappointed  in  not  having  been  able  to  persuade  the 
world  to  be  of  his  opinion  as  to  Pope'  (Boswell's  Life,  Hill  Ed., 
I,  p.  448). 

84  Crit.  Rev.,  xvi,  p.  220.  It  is  perfectly  evident,  however,  that  the 
debt  does  not  lie  on  that  side.  Hurd's  Letters  and  the  second  edition 
of  the  Observations  appeared  in  the  same  year,  which  would  almost 
conclusively  preclude  any  borrowings  from  the  first  for  the  second. 
But  Warton's  first  edition,  eight  years  before,  had  enough  of  chiv- 
alry and  romance  to  kindle  a  mind  in  sympathy.  Hurd  was  a  less 
thorough  student  of  the  old  romances  themselves  than  Warton  was. 
He  seems  to  have  known  them  through  Sainte  Palaye's  M6moires  sur 
I'Ancienne  Chevalerie  (1750-81)  ;  for  he  said  'Not  that  I  shall  make 
a  merit  with  you  in  having  perused  these  barbarous  volumes  myself. 
.  .  .  Thanks  to  the  curios'ty  of  certain  painful  collectors,  this  knowl- 
edge may  be  obtained  at  a  cheaper  rate.  And  I  think  it  sufficient  to 
refer  you  to  a  learned  and  very  elaborate  memoir  of  a  French  writer ' 

(Letters  on  Chivalry  and  Romance.  Letter  IV,  Hurd's  Works,  ed. 
1811,  iv,  p.  260).  Warton  also  new  this  French  work  (Ste.  Pelaye's 
at  least)  and  quoted  from  it.  Observations,  I,  p.  76,  and  frequently  in 
his  History  of  English  Poetry. 


THOMAS    WAETON    AND    LITEEAEY    CEITICISM  107 

rived  no  doubt  from  the  tone  of  greater  confidence  that 
Hurd  was  able  to  assume.  Following  both  the  Wartons, 
Hurd  sharpened  the  distinction  between  the  prevailing 
pseudo-classical  school  of  poetry  and  what  he  called  the 
Gothic;  insisted  upon  the  independence  of  its  standards; 
and  even  maintained  the  superiority  of  its  subjects.85  In 
all  this  however  he  made  no  real  departure  from  Warton, 
the  difference  being  one  of  emphasis ;  Hurd  gave  an  im- 
portant impetus  to  the  movement  his  master  had  begun. 
But  with  all  his  modernity,  his  admiration  for  the  growing 
school  of  imaginative  poets,  he  lacked  Warton's  faith  in  his 
school;  he  had  no  forward  view,  but  looked  back  on  the 
past  with  regret,  and  toward  the  future  without  hope.86 

On  the  side  of  pure  literary  criticism  Warton's  first  and 
most  important  follower  was  his  elder  brother,  Joseph, 
whose  Essay  on  Pope  was  a  further  application  of  his 
critical  theories  to  the  reigning  favourite.  This  very 
remarkable  book  was  the  first  extensive  and  serious  attack 
upon  Pope's  supremacy  as  a  poet,  and  it  is  credited  with 
two  very  important  contributions  to  the  romantic  move- 
ment :  the  overthrow  of  Pope  and  his  school ;  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  new  models,   Spenser,   Shakespeare,   Milton, 


85 '  May  there  not  be  something  in  the  Gothic  Romances  peculiarly 
suited  to  the  views  of  a  genius,  and  to  the  ends  of  poetry?  '  (Hurd, 
rv,  p.  239).  'Under  this  idea  than  of  a  Gothic,  not  classical  poem, 
the  Fairy  Queen  is  to  be  read  and  criticized  '  (iv,  p.  292).  '  So  far  as 
the  heroic  and  Gothic  manners  are  the  same,  the  pictures  of  each 
.  .  .  must  be  equally  entertaining.  But  I  go  further,  and  maintain 
that  the  circumstances,  in  which  they  differ,  are  clearly  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  Gothic  designers  .  .  .  could  Homer  have  seen  .  .  .  the 
manners  of  the  feudal  ages,  I  make  no  doubt  but  he  would  certainly 
have  preferred  the  latter,'  because  of  '  the  improved  gallantry  of  the 
Gothic  Knights  and  the  superior  solemnity  of  their  superstitions  ' 
(rv.  p.  280). 

86  Hurd's  Letters,  iv,  p.  350. 


108  CLARISSA   RINAKER 

and  the  modern  school ;  87  it  contained  the  first  explicit 
statement  of  the  new  poetic  theories.88 

Warton's  Observations  on  the  '  Fairy  Queen '  thus 
wrought  so  great  and  so  salutary  a  change  in  literary  criti- 
cism that  it  i§  practically  impossible  to  exaggerate  its 
importance.  iHere  first  the  historical  method  was  appre- 
ciated and  extensively  employed.  Here  first  the  pseudo- 
classicism  of  the  age  of  Pope  was  exposed.  Here  first  is 
maintained  a  nice  and  difficult  balance  between  classical 
and  romantic  criticism :  without  underestimating  the  influ- 
ence of  classical  literature  upon  the  development  of  English 
poetry,  Warton  first  insisted  that  due  attention  be  paid  the 

87  Joseph  Warton  placed  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  '  our  only 
three  sublime  and  pathetic  poets'  in  the  first  class,  at  the  head  of 
English  poets.  The  object  of  the  essay  was  to  determine  Pope's 
place  in  the  list.  '  I  revere  the  memory  of  Pope,'  he  said,  '  I  respect 
and  honour  his  abilities;  but  I  do  not  think  him  at  the  head  of  his 
profession.  In  other  words,  in  that  species  of  poetry  wherein  Pope 
excelled,  he  is  superior  to  all  mankind:  and  I  only  say,  that  this 
species  of  poetry  is  not  the  most  excellent  one  of  the  art'  (Dedication 
i-ii) .  '  The  sublime  and  pathetic  are  the  two  chief  nerves  of  all  genuine 
poetry.     What  is  there  transcendently  sublime  or  pathetic  in  Pope?  ' 

(Ded.  vi).  After  a  careful  examination  of  all  Pope's  works  Joseph 
Warton  assigned  him  the  highest  place  in  the  second  class,  below  Mil- 
ton and  above  Dryden.  He  was  given  a  place  above  other  modern 
English  poets  because  of  the  '  excellencies  of  his  works  in  general, 
and  taken  all  together;  for  there  are  parts  and  passages  in  other 
modern  authors,  in  Young  and  in  Thomson,  for  instance,  equal  to  any 
of  Pope,  and  he  has  written  nothing  in  a  strain  so  truly  sublime, 
as  the  Bard  of  Gray '  ( n,  p.  405 ) .  References  are  to  the  fifth 
edition,  2  vols.,   1806. 

88  The  first  volume  of  Joseph  Warton's  Essay  on  Pope  appeared  in 
1756,  two  years  after  the  Observations.  Though  its  iconoclasm  was 
more  apparent,  the  latter  essay  made  little  advance  in  the  way  of 
new  theory  upon  the  earlier  one,  and  there  is  rather  more  of  hedging 
in  the  discussion  of  Pope  than  in  that  of  Spenser.  The  greater 
variety  of  revolutionary  dicta  enunciated  by  the  younger  brother, 
and  his  greater  activity  in  promulgating  them,  lead  us  to  regard  him 
as  the  more  original  thinker  of  the  two. 


THOMAS    WARTON    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM  109 

neglected  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  with  quite 
independent  but  equally  legitimate  traditions  contributed 
richly  not  only  to  the  poetry  of  Spenser  but  to  all  great 
poetry  since.  His  strength  lies  in  the  solidity  and  the 
inclusiveness  of  his  critical  principles.  Without  being- 
carried  away  by  romantic  enthusiasm  to  disregard  the 
classics,  he  saw  and  accounted  for  a  difference  between 
modern  and  ancient  poetry  and  adapted  his  criticism  to 
poetry  as  he  found  it  instead  of  trying  to  conform  poetry  to 
rules  which  were  foreign  to  it.  This  new  criticism  exposed 
the  fatal  weakness  in  the  prevailing  pseudo-classical  poetry 
and  criticism ;  it  showed  the  folly  of  judging  either  single 
poems  or  national  literature  as  independent  and  detached, 
and  the  necessity  of  considering  them  in  relation  to  the 
national  life  and  literature  to  which  they  belong.  Thus 
Warton's  freedom  from  prejudice  and  preconceived  stand- 
ards, his  interest  in  the  human  being  who  writes  poetry, 
and  the  influences  both  social  and  literary  which  surround 
him,  his — for  that  day — extraordinary  knowledge  of  all 
those  conditions,  enabled  him  to  become  the  founder  of  a 
new  school  of  criticism. 

Clarissa  Rinaker. 


VITA 

The  author  of  this  study  was  born  at  Carlinville,  Illi- 
nois, December  23,  1883.  She  attended  the  Carlinville 
public  school,  Blackburn  Academy  and  College,  and  was 
graduated  from  the  latter  with  the  A.  B.  degree  in  1903. 
As  a  student  at  Blackburn  her  work  included  courses  in 
the  classics  under  Professor  A.  F.  Hertel,  in  biology  under 
Professor  Charles  Kobertson,  and  in  philosophy  under 
Professor  W.  H.  Bradley.  During  the  years  1906  to  1908 
she  served  as  a  substitute  teacher  in  the  Carlinville  High 
School  and  in  Blackburn  College,  and  from  1908  to  1910 
as  teacher  of  English  at  Blackburn.  From  1910  to  1913 
she  was  successively  scholar  and  fellow  in  English  litera- 
ture in  the  graduate  school  of  the  University  of  Illinois, 
and  received  the  degrees  of  master  of  arts  and  doctor  of 
philosophy  in  1911  and  1913.  She  was  then  appointed 
instructor  in  English  literature  in  the  University  of  Illi- 
nois. Her  graduate  study  has  included  courses  in  litera- 
ture under  Professors  S.  P.  Sherman,  E.  M.  Alden,  D.  K. 
Dodge,  Edward  Fulton,  H.  S.  V.  Jones,  and  H.  G.  Paul, 
and  in  philosophy  under  Professor  B.  PL  Bode.  She  spent 
the  summer  vacations  of  1912  and  1914  in  England 
largely  in  research  at  Oxford  and  in  the  British  Museum. 
She  published  Twenty-six  Unedited  Letters  from  Thomas 
Warton  to  Jonathan  Toup,  John  Price,  George  Steevens, 
Isaac  Reed,  William  Mavor,  and  Edmond  Malone,  in  the 
Journal  of  English  and  Germanic  Philology,  vol.  xiv,  no. 
1,  pp.  96-118. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY-TEl.  NO.  642-3405 

Th,s  book  m ;  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed         ow'  or 
Renewed  books  are  subject  toKSSL  recall. 


~AUf~Ti95gT, 


Gay  lord  Bros. 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y, 

CAT.  JAN.  21,  1908 


C  D  3  1  fi  5  5  S  b  b 


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